


Doomed from the Start

by hebitsukai_mega



Series: Grey Flu Apocalypse [1]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M, Zombie Stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 22:34:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10796112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hebitsukai_mega/pseuds/hebitsukai_mega
Summary: Sometimes, you're absolutely screwed no matter what you do... during the zombie apocalypse, that statement is almost always true





	Doomed from the Start

**Author's Note:**

> This was co-authored by my girlfriend who doesn't have an account on this site, but is known on Tumblr as "Imaginethesedorks" so no, I didn't steal or plagiarize anything if anyone was wondering. it's just as much my creation as hers

The sunrise.

It used to be beautiful. It used to be serene, welcomed, pleasant.

Now it was just a reminder of another day in hell on earth.

It was Minghao’s turn to take watch, and he felt sleep burning the corners of his eyes as the sun rose up over the horizon. Broken down cars, abandoned buildings, and the few shuffling corpses of the living dead were silhouetted against the warm orange light.

He played absently with his knife, scraping it along the wooden floor of the old warehouse where he and Jun had hidden for the night. It was hard to stay awake, but it was even harder to sleep these days. He let himself wallow in limbo and hoped that his companion was catching some shut eye in the sleeping bag just a few feet away.

Jun lied restlessly in his sleeping bag, his eyes squeezed shut trying to get some sleep. The light of the sun was still visible behind his eyelids though and he sighed to himself; another sleepless night. He rolled over and opened his eyes, smiling at the sight of Minghao sitting in the corner, absentmindedly scraping the floor with his knife.

“Morning Hao,”

Minghao was startled. He didn’t jump, didn’t show it on the outside – it was partly his tiredness and partly because with the world they lived in, being startled was just a part of everyday life.

When the deep, rugged morning voice spoke to him, he felt a wave of delight creep up his spine. It was something hard to find, but it was what Jun provided for him.

He turned easily on his spot, toward where his boyfriend was bundled up in the old sleeping bag and the few blankets that they had enough room to carry with them. With the smallest amount of dirt on his face and his hair rustled, he still looked like an angel.

“Morning.”

“You look tired babe,” Jun held back a yawn, “Come snuggle with me.”

Jun knew good and well that Minghao wouldn’t take him up on the offer. He could practically already hear the excuses pouring out about how ‘it was too dangerous for both of them to rest’ because ‘someone had to keep watch’. As if anything could happen to them that would be worse than the shit they’d already been through. In the world they lived in, death was more than an inevitability, it was a mercy. The only thing that made their shattered lives worth living was the love they had for each other, so Jun could never understand why Minghao so often pushed him away.

Minghao had to hold his face from turning into a visible scowl. Even if he was a little disappointed in Jun – for his lack of common sense in their new world, he never wanted to taint the sweet boy with his sour attitude. Jun’s smiles, the glint that still remained in his eyes, his cute little morning half-yawns, were probably the only thing that still kept him going.

“You should eat something.” He didn’t even bother to make a reply to the proposal, simply moved on without acknowledging it. He reached over and slid Jun’s pack toward himself, digging through and hoping that his mental inventory of their food supply was still accurate.

“I had the binoculars out earlier, just for a look, and I saw a Hostess truck at the end of the street. It’s probably long raided by now, but it might be worth a shot, ya know?”

He found one of their last protein bars – peanut butter, the kind that Jun liked, and offered it up to him.

Jun had to fight the urge to glare at Minghao as he grabbed the protein bar from him, a little more forcefully than necessary just to make a point. He sat up straight, shrugging the thin blanket off his shoulders and stretching. He opened the small foil wrapper with his teeth and took a bite.

“A Hostess truck huh? If anything can survive the apocalypse it would be Twinkies, we should go ahead and check it out,” Jun replied, his mouth full. He licked his lips to savor that peanut butter taste he loved so much.

Jun mentally cursed the fact the fact that Minghao wouldn’t even acknowledge his flirting at times; it was a problem they’d never be able to overcome since Minghao refused to even slightly open up about it. He didn’t want to push the issue though, the last thing he wanted was an argument.

Minghao took the blanket from behind Jun and started to fold, and then roll it up tightly.

“Good.” He said, putting the blanket back in Jun’s pack. He noticed the sound of a harsh crinkle; hallow plastic. One of their water bottles was empty. They only had two more protein bars left, and the pack of jerky, and probably some of that cereal… and they would need to find water after the Hostess truck. It suddenly became how apparent to him how dry his tongue felt in his mouth and he tried to remember the last time he drank. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen Jun drink.

“If the truck still runs, we can take it. It wouldn’t be a bad place to sleep either.”

He had a lot on his mind. But the first and highest priority to uphold was Jun’s safety.

Jun nodded, “Yeah, we could totally take the truck,”

He didn’t care about the truck, or if there was food in it or even if it would serve as shelter… all he cared about was spending time with Minghao, especially because he knew he didn’t have much time left; the itching wound on his lower back was a constant reminder of that. He was surprised he’d lasted this long honestly, it had been about three days since their scuffle with that pack of infected dogs. All the information he had suggested that a bite would turn you completely within 48 hours, but maybe Jun was different, or maybe he was just so damn stubborn that even The Grey Flu couldn’t get to him right away.

He looked over Minghao’s face, recalling how they’d met back at the hospital when evacuation still seemed like a viable idea. It had been six months or so since then, or at least Jun thought; time seemed to slip away from him more often than not.

“Hey Hao,” Jun finally spoke up again, “You remember the night we met?”

Minghao was still somewhere between packing and taking stock, so the question had to hover in his ear for a moment before it truly became a thought.

“Of course I do.” A smile almost crept onto his face. Almost.

It had been simultaneously the bed and worst night of his life. Sitting around the pediatric floor (which had been evacuated of any patients), leaning up against a nurse’s station desk for nine long hours until his sister was taken away with the rest of the women by a couple of very scary looking military men. Then feeling nothing but lost and hopeless without her, his only family.

And of course, just when he was ready to let himself fall off the edge into complete despair, he walked around a corner to find a breathtakingly handsome man with his arm stuck up inside a vending machine.

Potato chips and that gorgeous smile fended off the darkness as it looked Minghao in the face that night. And he could never, ever repay Jun that debt of pure kindness.

“You… You made one hell of a first impression. On the floor with your arm stuck up inside that vending machine.”

Jun laughed at the memory, “Yeah, I was hungry as hell and a bag of ketchup chips never looked so good,”

He himself wasn’t there for the evacuation, not really. He remembered it vividly. His longtime best friend Mingming had been interning at that hospital, and when things started getting really bad, he had to make sure he was okay. Unfortunately by the time he arrived, all the actual hospital staff and patients were gone, and he hadn’t seen Mingming since. After seeing the vending machine he decided that eating something would take his mind off his absent friend, and he neglected to bring any cash with him so…

Jun specifically remembered turning and seeing Minghao for the first time when he felt someone’s eyes on him. His hair was tussled, his clothes disheveled and, most memorably of all, his shoes were untied. He was clearly an emotional wreck, but something about his appearance sent a smile dancing across Jun’s face. He remembered offering Minghao some of the chips he’d stolen, and he even recalled the slight hesitation on his face before he accepted. 

“Compared to how things were then, you know in the early days of the pandemic, the world actually seems kind of… well, calm for lack of a better term,” Jun admitted, discreetly rubbing over the wound on his back, hoping to stop the itch.

Minghao agreed, but disagreed. It was calm, yes, but quiet. And the quiet will drive you crazy. At least with chaos and noise, there are still people to make noise…

But even with those thoughts floating through his mind, he became fixated on what Jun was doing. Awkwardly scratching at his lower back with his blunt nails, a slightly aggravated look on his face. When Minghao really thought about it, Jun had been fixated on that spot for the past day or so…

“What is it?” He asked, scooting closer to have a look. Jun was wearing two sweaters and a tee shirt so it was difficult to lift any of the fabric to get a good look at his skin. “More poison ivy? I thought we learned ‘leaves of three, leave them be’?”

“It’s nothing Minghao,” Jun quickly swatted his hand away and moved closer to the wall, pressing his back against it and putting some distance between them. He’d been bitten and he was going to die, no way around that. He didn’t want his remaining time on Earth to be marred by Minghao crying over him, it was best if he didn’t know about it until it was over, “Probably just an allergic reaction to something,”

He absolutely hated lying, especially to Minghao, but what other choice was there? He knew Minghao would blame himself for this, even though it was Jun’s own negligence that got him bitten; he knew damn well that when infected dogs attack, one always comes from behind. But he wasn’t careful enough, and now here he was, staring his own fragile mortality in the face as it hung over him like a comically oversized anvil held up by a single thread. He hated even thinking about it, so he simply tried his best not to. In the past few days he’d made a habit of letting himself get lost in Minghao’s deep brown eyes. He’d smile and enjoy every second of Hao’s sweet and gentle voice singing or humming random tunes; he was savoring these things… things that would be ending for him all too soon.

Minghao grew suspicious.

None of these things were normal marks of Jun’s behaviour – pulling away, playing things down, brushing off Minghao’s worries. Not after all their time together. He liked to stayed close, get in all the physical affection he possible could, play up things like the drama queen he was, and most of all, he knew to let Minghao see his worries through to be satisfied.

Minghao could not settle until he knew Jun was one hundred percent fine.

“Is it the peanut butter?” He questioned, picking the wrapper off the floor to inspect it. “Don’t tell me I’ve been feeding you something all this time and you’re allergic to it.” His eyes scanned over the ingredients, saw nothing incredibly out of the ordinary. “What if it’s the sleeping bag? I knew we didn’t clean it too properly after that rat crawled in there and crapped…”

He trailed off, his voice quiet, mind racing. If Jun had some kind of small cut and the ruminants of rat feces had gotten into it, it could cause a major infection. He could need penicillin or some kind of stronger antibiotic. They could have to track all the way back to that veterinary college they saw to find medicine…

“Jun, babe, you really need to let me take a look at you. It could be serious.” Minghao broke out the pet names, making his best effort to coax his boyfriend into doing what he wanted.

Jun winced at both the itch and Minghao’s insistence. He knew he’d fucked up royally and Hao wouldn’t drop it until he found out exactly what was wrong. He let out a sigh and got on his knees, slowly peeling of the sweater and shirts he was wearing.

“It happened a few days ago, when those dogs attacked us,” he slowly started to confess, turning around to reveal his wound to Minghao’s horrified eyes. It was much worse now than it had been before; the area around the bite mark was purple and swollen and the skin there was already starting to turn grey,

“I… I guess I should’ve been more careful huh,” Jun tried to laugh but it sounded more like a scoff due to the lump forming in his throat. He always tried to make light of bad situations but this… this was too much even for him.

In this instant, Minghao realized this is truly what it felt like to have his whole world come crashing down.

He felt reality shatter.

He’d had nightmares like this before – endless dream sequences of Jun being bitten or ripped apart by the dead while screaming for his help; this thoughts plaguing his mind to the point it made him sleepless and terrified of his own mind.

But this was different. This was the sun warm on his back and Jun’s voice three dimensional in his ear, slapping him and tell him that this was nothing but reality.

In a fraction of a moment, every molecule in his body closed up. His muscles became tense and painful, his throat tightened, trying to strangle itself so that he too could peacefully die with the only man he ever loved. His lungs deflated like two sad balloons and his eyes welled with tears.

Minghao struggled. He thought he was going to drop dead on the spot as he stared at the decaying, bloody wound on Jun’s back.

He took in his first deep, gasping breath – and released with a painful, course cry.

As Minghao crumbed to the ground in a sobbing heap, Jun could no longer hold back his own tears. He placed a shaky hand on Hao’s back, simultaneously trying to comfort him and keep himself rooted.

“I’m so sorry Minghao, I should’ve told you sooner but I… I didn’t want this. I didn’t want you to break down on me, you’re usually so strong, usually the only thing keeping me sane. You’re my lifeline and I knew that if you broke, I wouldn’t be far behind. Now there’s no way we can just enjoy our last hours together,”

Jun’s voice was trembling just as bad as his hands were and he wasn’t sure if it was due to his emotional state or if the virus was finally starting to affect his brain. Either way all he could do now was pull Minghao into a loving embrace; holding the bawling young man against his bare chest and whispering nonstop words of apology into his ear.

Minghao gripped onto Jun’s shoulder. Held him still, held onto the flesh tight as if to hold Jun into his life with sheer force.

Jun was his sanity, his lifeline, his rock. He could feel a pain in his chest – so deep and cutting that it shot up into his neck and alarmingly quickly turned into a headache. He thought maybe this was the feeling of his heart breaking.

“I can’t. I can’t lose you.”

He words were full of slobber, spit gathering in his cheeks from his weakness and the snot pooling in his nose.

“You won’t lose me Hao,” Jun tried his absolute hardest to calm himself, he had to be strong for Minghao now, not something he was used to, “You’ll never really lose me. We’ve spent so much time together that our souls are intertwined now. Even if… even if I’m gone, we will always have each other,”

Jun tried to convince himself of the words he was saying; deep down he believed what them, but he also knew what bullshit it must’ve sounded like to Minghao. Their world was crashing down around them now, and all he could offer was spiritual shit that didn’t really mean anything.

“I love you, m-more than anything, and nothing not… not even death will change that Xu Minghao. I’ll admit, I’m scared, I’m fucking terrified Hao. I don’t… I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna leave you behind and close my eyes forever. I’m so, so scared but the only possible comfort I have is that somehow, even if it doesn’t make any damn sense, somehow I’ll live on in you, in your heart.”

Minghao gripped even harder. He wrapped his arms around Jun’s neck, holding him as tight at the shaking in his body could ensure. He refused to let go.

He wanted to believe it. He did believe it. That it was somehow all going to be okay. That’s the thought that had been fueling him along all this time. But he never imagined ‘okay’ to be like this.

“I love you.” His voice was weak, cracking with the tightness of his throat, quiet under the weight of the world. “I am bound to you. I love you so much and it hurts. This hurts, Junhui.” He took a small pause, trying desperately to even out his breathing. “You’re not allowed to do this to me. It hurts. And I’m scared too…”

He couldn’t muster much past his physical pain. As if making Jun feel guilty enough would just magically force him to live.

And if Minghao could have managed to pull his teary eyes out of Jun’s chest, he would have seen the redness in his boyfriend’s eyes – blood vessels breaking. The disease finally closing in.

Jun could still hear Minghao’s words, but they were muffled, muted almost like his ears wouldn’t pop. He finally opened his eyes and he found his vision darkening at an alarming rate. He felt clammy and cold, and he could barely feel Minghao’s touch against his skin anymore. This was it… he was finally losing himself.

“M-Minghao I… it’s happening,” Jun forced himself to say despite the rapid drying out of his throat. Basic breathing was starting to become laborious and he was losing the strength to even sit up on his knees anymore. Minghao reluctantly released Jun, helping him to lie down on the cold floor. He could see it now, the swift greying of his skin, the reddening of his eyes and his intense shivering. Somehow, Jun still found the strength to hold Minghao’s hand. He was alarmed at how quickly the virus had taken him once his bite was revealed; perhaps his stubbornness and will to keep it hidden truly was what had been keeping it at bay the whole time.

“Minghao, when it’s done, when I close my eyes… you know what you have to do right? You can’t let me come back as one of the infected, I won’t be able to control myself then, you’ll be in danger,” Jun coughed as he spoke, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth as his organs started shutting down, “I know it’s not gonna be easy, but you… you have to, I love you so much, I can’t bear the thought of hurting you,”

It was so fast. Everything turned on a dime and made Minghao’s head spin.

He nodded. All he could do was nod, let Jun know that he did know what had to be done.

When he closed his eyes it was even quicker. It was a second after his lashes met his cheeks that his death grip on Minghao’s hand weaned off. He was really gone.

Minghao gathered his strength. He told himself over and over – his Jun wasn’t here anymore. His Jun was in a better place. He repeated this as a mantra of safety, of comfort, as he picked up his knife from behind him. His hand was shaking when he held Jun’s head so tenderly and pierced the blade clean through his skull.

He wept for a long time. With Jun’s body sprawled across his lap, and the sound of the infected clawing at the metal door across the room, he wept. The sun was higher in the sky now and hot on his back; but his world was a bitter cold that went much deeper than his skin.

Things would never be the same.

(…)

He buried Jun in an open field behind a Walmart, and a few feet away from an unfinished suburb development. It was the nearest patch of open ground he could manage to carry the body to, but it was nice. There was small patches of little white flowers that Minghao couldn’t identify and a small brown cat that didn’t look infected or even starved.

Minghao marked the grave with a piece of drywall from one of the unfinished houses. For a long time, he couldn’t think of anything suitable to write, and the cat settled in his lap while he thought.

By the time night fall came, he felt a unique emptiness that he hadn’t felt for a very long time. 

Minghao placed a twinkie on the grave, perhaps in a last effort to repay Jun for his smile, and walked off. To exactly what, no one was sure.


End file.
